Though much of the hoopla surrounding the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has mercifully passed, Melissa Ziobro, Monmouth University professor, reminded a Tinton Falls audience that the recent British matrimonial event was just the latest in a tradition of across-the-pond “romances” between members of the European royalty and American brides.
Ziobro regaled 25 very interested women seniors (and two brave men) on May 21 with stories of “American Women and Royal Marriages.” The Harry/Meghan Wedding was certainly spectacular, but the joining together of Old and New World couples was not as uncommon as we might think.
Ziobro is a specialist professor of public history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and frequently writes and lectures on women’s issues. During this recent presentation, Ziobro admitted: “There are important issues and there are interesting issues. This most recent royal wedding falls into the latter, but it has increased attention to the Gilded Age phenomena of what were called ‘American Dollar Princesses.’ ”
In Europe, the landed gentry needed to find income to replace their disappearing earnings from centuries-old agricultural endeavors. Their expensive to maintain manor houses were becoming increasingly unsustainable as well. Enter American money. Although British nobility were the top choice for most young women seeking these marriages, they also married Germans, Austrians and Italians.
American newspapers often ran lists of American heiresses marrying noblemen, including the amount of money the young women “took out of the country” with them, often half a million dollars or more. Of particular interest to The Two River Times readers, and probably surprising to most, is the story of Miss Florence Hazard of Shrewsbury, daughter of the owner of the world-famous Hazard Ketchup Factory, E. C. Hazard. Florence was only 16 years old when she married Prince Franz von Auersperg of Austria in June 1899. She was looking to improve her station in life, and incidentally her fiancé’s.
This article was first published in the June 7-June 14, 2018 print edition of The Two River Times.